The Pandora Box

by Lilly Maytree

  “I have a feeling you were born subversive. Anyway, since you so flippantly used me as an alibi, I would like the option of being able to do the same with you. I’d like to say I had no idea you were involved in this kind of stuff and felt they were grounds for divorce. And, since you were so quick to marry us in the first place, everything would be true.”

  “But you don’t realize what you’re asking me.”

  “You don’t realize what I’ve got on the line here. If I lose my honorable discharge, I lose my retirement pay and all my benefits. Not to mention my honor. First my boat and now my dreams. How much more of me are you going to take?” He turned and walked a few steps away, hooked a thumb subconsciously in the pocket of his jeans and walked back to her again. The hazel eyes revealed sincere turmoil, and Dee felt a sudden pang at the thought of ruining his life.

  “Don’t take away my dreams, Dee.”

  “Oh, how was I supposed to know you worked for the government?”

  “Will you do it?”

  “But you don’t know where I come from. I’m warning you, Hawkins, you’d regret it a whole lot more than I would. “

  “Where you come from has nothing to do with this deal.”

  “It has everything to do with it. You and I are on two different roads. And marriage can’t change that. We’d be miserable.”

  “We’re miserable anyway. The important thing is, it’ll cover our backsides, and that’s all we need for it to do. Walking away would only make things worse. For everybody. Not just us.”

  Dee was quiet for a few moments. He struck a chord inside her when he said for everybody. Because if there was one thing ingrained into her more than anything else, was the necessity of living for others. Her whole life had been shaped around that philosophy, and she didn’t know how to live any other way. Now, she had not only endangered other lives with her own personal zeal, one man was dead because of it. That would haunt her for the rest of her life, even if Peterson had been an aide to Goering.

  And now this band of unusual friends, who could have walked away from the mess she had gotten them into and been safe, had opted to stick with her in spite of the dangers.

  Getting married would not only settle things for Hawk, they might actually all end up with what they started out for in the first place. A fortune. One that would let each of them to do anything they wanted for the rest of their lives.

  The whole group.

  More than that she would be able to organize the Peterson Foundation. Well, maybe not the Peterson Foundation, now that she knew the whole story. But one with a different name that would promote peace and help some of the suffering in the world, nevertheless.

  There was something else stirring, too. Something that only became perfectly clear to her this very moment.

  As much as she hated to admit it, something undeniable was beginning to stir in her for Wayne Hawkins. He was not like her in any way. And even though she had argued more with him in the last five days than she had with anyone in the last five years, the thought of destroying his dreams (anyone’s dreams) had struck to the depths of her heart. Even though being married to someone with a lifestyle like his would be almost unendurable, he was right about it being the most honorable thing to do.

  How was it Wayne Hawkins had a sense of honor most Christians strived all their lives for?

  Even so, actually being married to him would take a lot of getting used to. It would definitely take some new strategies. So she opted to pin him down with his own set of rules for the time being, although going back on a sacred promise would never be an option for her.

  “Strictly business?” she asked again.

  “On my honor, sweets,” he replied. “I’ll even try to stop calling you names.”

  There was another long moment of silence before she sighed, closed her eyes and nodded her head ever so slightly, and then took a deep breath. “All right, Hawkins. But I hope, when you live to regret this, you remember how hard I tried to talk you out of it.”

  Her hand shook as she filled out the paperwork. An hour after that, when they were standing in front of a clerk and the Justice of the Peace, Dee began to feel like she might even faint. What would her family say? One should not enter into a solemn oath if they did not mean it (she knew that in her heart of hearts), and this was getting more and more serious by the minute.

  The words were familiar. Though she had never spoken them, she had seen it done enough times at church and in movies. For a moment, she was afraid she might not be able to go through with it.

  But when the judge said, “Dorothy Jane Parker, do you take Wayne Edward Hawkins…”

  Her voice was her own and everything went the way it was supposed to.

  Except they didn’t have a ring.

  After that bit of confusion was past, they were pronounced man and wife, and the judge informed Hawkins that he could kiss the bride.

  The thought of kissing Wayne Hawkins in front of people when he had never kissed her in private gave Dee another incredible case of butterflies. But she dutifully turned her face up to his and prepared herself for the light, customary kiss that tradition demanded.

  Instead, his arms came around her, and to her surprise―almost tenderly―he drew her close and kissed her as if she were truly the love of his life.

  It caught her off guard. She felt the quick, startled intake of her own breath and then his hand, firm but gentle against her hair, so that she wouldn’t back away.

  She melted against him as if she really loved him,

  The clerk dabbed at her eyes. “This one’s going to last. I got goose bumps!” she said.

  They were quiet when they left the office.

  The bustling, sunny street that greeted them outside seemed to reassure Dee that none of it was real. She might have forgotten the incident entirely and gone on, except for the lingering telltale signs which proved that (in spite of their lesser intentions) a promise was a promise, and some kind of bond had been forged.

  When they climbed into the taxi and their shoulders touched, neither moved away. When they emerged once again onto Market Street and he helped her out of the cab, there was a gentleness about him that hadn’t been there before. Or, maybe she just imagined there was.

  “You want to go to lunch somewhere before we go back?” Hawkins asked. “This whole thing’s got me rattled.”

  “Me, too,” Dee admitted.

  “There’s a little place a couple blocks down called The Grotto, where we can order all the crab we can eat, talk long enough to get in an argument, and then we’ll be back to normal.”

  But they had already been cast adrift from their separate worlds…and it was too late for that now.

  18

  Changing Course

  “A table, graced with a profusion of tropical blossoms—a man, handsomer than an ideal hero, at its head—a fine menu…” ~ Nellie Bly

  They sat at a large bay window that overlooked the waterfront, and Hawk ordered champagne to go with their meal.

  “I thought we were going to treat this strictly business.” Dee waited until the waitress was gone to speak.

  “People celebrate all the time over business deals,” he replied. “I need a drink, that’s all I know. We can drink to our coming divorce if it would make you feel better. Champagne just seemed fitting, all of a sudden.”

  “So, when do we leave, exactly?”

  “There’s a high tide coming in at four forty-seven this evening. I want to make it.”

  “Four forty-seven, that’s awfully precise.”

  “Tide tables are accurate to the minute. A lot of people go by them, so they have to be.”

  “We leave the country just like that?” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “We don’t have to fill out a travel plan, show our passports, check the weather or something?”

  “That’s the beauty of sailing. You can come and go as you want, with very little fanfare. One of the last remaining expressions of absolute independence. As for t
he weather, we’re going to hit every kind there is on this trip, so it really doesn’t matter what it’s like. Outside of a hurricane she can handle anything.”

  “And I suppose we’ll go back to having watches again.”

  “It’s all part of the routine. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m not much of a morning person, so I probably never will.”

  “You just haven’t seen enough mornings. Honey, I could show you some mornings at sea that would make you break down and cry.”

  Their food arrived.

  When they were alone again, he raised his glass in her direction to signify a silent tribute before he drank.

  “I thought we came here to argue,” she reminded him.

  “We can argue after lunch.”

  “Hawk”—she leaned forward and spoke in a quiet, confidential whisper “—did you ever notice how we keep seeing the same people everywhere we go? Like that couple over there for instance. I just know they were at Martinelli’s last night.”

  “Tourists tend to hop around to the same places,” he said with equal quiet. Then he leaned forward until their heads were nearly touching, as if he were going to share some similar observation.

  Dee waited, expecting him to confide that they were being followed.

  “Baby, you look pretty enough to—” he whispered.

  “It’s just the champagne.” She sat up straight again. “Excuse me while I go freshen up.”

  Even the restrooms in these California tourist spots seemed luxurious to Dee. Polished wooden flooring, a potted palm in one corner that was really alive, and lighthouse and ocean paintings hung over a backdrop of real fish nets. She had very few experiences in places like this (crab for lunch), and couldn’t help the feeling of pleasure that washed over her. Which abruptly vanished when she caught a sudden whiff of night-blooming jasmine.

  Of course, lots of perfumes had that scent, especially in places like California or Hawaii. But hadn’t her feeling of being followed, yesterday, been true? Then, as if she needed more proof, a pair of sandaled feet passed in front of her stall with lavender-painted toenails.

  “Jennifer?” Dee snatched her bag off the door-hook and threw back the latch. “Wait a minute!” But by the time she stepped out, no one was there.

  Back in the dining area, she did a scan over the room, but no one remotely resembled the young aide from Wyngate State Hospital who had escorted her out of the building last week. The experience was unnerving and her heart was still pounding when she sat down at the table.

  “What’s wrong, sugar? Delayed case of shock setting in?”

  “I…” Dee reached for her glass of water. “Thought I saw someone I knew.”

  He made a reflexive scan of his own around the room as if he might spot them, himself. “Which one?”

  “Nobody in here.” She set her glass down. “And there wasn’t enough time for anyone to leave without seeing them go out the door.”

  “Just nerves, then. Now you’ve got me feeling jumpy.”

  “I thought you were going to quit calling me names.”

  “I was. But quitting will be harder than I thought. I’ll have to think of something else to call you. Like Mrs. Hawkins.”

  “Hawk, don’t you dare! I don’t want Marion and Starr to know. Marrying just to get us out of a fix…I’d never live it down.”

  He didn’t answer but his eyes were fairly dancing with pleasure at the thought. “Seems I’ve reached a depth in your character that up to now was untapped. Might be you have flaws just like the rest of us. Such as money?”

  “For your information, a lot of people depend on my money. Very important ones, actually.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” He winked at her and she quickly looked down at her food. “In all fairness, I didn’t expect you to be such a good sport about everything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Dee.”

  When they finally returned to the Pandora, Marion and Starr were back aboard, packing away fresh food and snack items that would see them through the long days ahead. Among these were six Louis L’Amour paperbacks and an equally tall stack of romance novels…obviously Marion’s contribution.

  “I told Starr I’d be plenty busy finishing my own novel,” Marion explained when she caught Dee eyeing them. “But he insists that’s work, and a person has to have a certain amount of escape reading in order to maintain one’s perspective during a long voyage.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Dee replied. “Marion, do you still have my camera?”

  “I put it on your bed. But you better hurry up and download those pictures if you want to get your assignment in before we leave.”

  “Going to do it right now.”

  Dee spent the next forty-five minutes getting her Around Town column finished and downloading the appropriate pictures to attach to the email. Her editor allowed her to choose her own subjects, as long as they were lively and local. She was hoping he’d now allow the next installments to follow her own travels for the summer with the title changed to Around Towns.

  She was fairly certain he would go for it. Especially since—by now—he would have had time to read the Wyngate material she turned in last week. He was always an easy touch after she turned in a scandal piece because it sent the public opinion page soaring. Controversy, he said, is what really sold newspapers. The bare facts one could get on TV.

  The first two installments highlighted that little Oregon fishing village as the hidden jewel of tourist spots, and the other offered a glimpse into the famed bustle of San Francisco’s Market Street. She sorted through snapshots, searching out the best to go with each story. There were several of the Berkley Marina, which she had taken early this morning just for her own pleasure, and she downloaded those, too.

  “All right, it’s time to batten down.” She heard Hawk’s voice in the companionway. “Everything stowed away down here? We’re about ready to head over to the gas dock.” Her door opened with no warning just as she was hitting the send button. “You can take the first watch, sugar,” he said, “and then―hey, put this stuff away now, or it’ll be all over the place. Come on, it’s four o’clock already.”

  “Hawk, I have to run up to that corner drugstore and get another memory card for my camera. Something could happen to this one on a trip this long, and it’s better to have a backup. It won’t take long it’s just up the street. Go ahead without me and I’ll meet you at the gas dock.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you, not even to the gas dock,” he declared. “One disappearance is enough.”

  “Send Marion or Starr with me then, and you won’t have to―”

  “What are you up to, Dee?”

  “Hawkins, I have to call Devlin.”

  “Then why didn’t you come right out and say so?”

  “Because I don’t feel like arguing about it. I have to touch bases with him at least once before we go. I can’t just take off for a month with no explanations, I’ll get fired.”

  “What are you going to tell him when he asks questions?”

  “He won’t ask questions.”

  “He’s human, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a newspaper editor. And no, they’re not human. All I have to do is tell him I’m on the story of a lifetime, and his lips are sealed. He’ll put me on an expense account and run interference if anyone else comes around asking questions.”

  “You have that kind of pull?”

  “So far. I still need the extra memory card, though.”

  “All right, but we’ll have to make it fast. Starr can top us off on the fuel and we’ll meet them over there.”

  Dee didn’t mention the fast talking she would have to do to get Devlin to say yes. Outside the drugstore, she pressed the work button on her cell phone, and hoped he would not be too busy to answer. He answered on the second ring, and it was nearly a minute before she got a word in.

  “Dev, do you want me to come home and type up press releases or do y
ou want pure, unadulterated, gut-wrenching controversy? Now, what I have here is a follow-up on Wyngate…you liked the Wyngate pieces, didn’t you, Dev?”

  There was a silence, a huge sigh, and then finally, “It’s the best you’ve ever done. It’s going to blow the top right off this town. Probably start an investigation of state hospitals from one end of Oregon to the other. And the way you broke it up into three parts, painting the whole picture, never dropping the bomb until you’ve got them right where you—I say it was brilliant! True to your form, kid.”

  “Thanks, Dev.”

  “The first part’s coming out this week. But listen, you’ve got me worried running out after the old guy kicked off. I’ve had the law down here asking questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “The typical kind they ask about people who were the last to see somebody alive.”

  “But, Dev, I wasn’t.”

  “According to them, you were. Considering the cause of death was insulin overdose that doesn’t look so good.”

  Dee gasped. “Insulin overdose!”

  “Having cops in my office two days in a row doesn’t look so good for me either.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “What I always say. You went on vacation, like usual. But the second guys were investigators or something. You’ll have to answer to them when you get back. Don’t worry. I already told them you left town two days before it even happened.”

  “Two days?”

  “You said on the machine you left Sunday. Coroner’s report said Peterson died on Tuesday. Looks like your source paid the band, kid. It’s too bad, even if he was an old geezer.”

  “He was more of an old geezer than you think. But it was my fault and I feel horrible about the whole mess. How could it have leaked out? You wouldn’t believe the lengths I went to just to keep this thing under wraps. One more day and I would have had him out of there!”

  “You did great, don’t worry about it. Peterson probably talked and they’re trying to set the dogs on you. The article turned out to be hotter than we realized. Some pretty big jobs are about to topple. So you did the right thing. The best place for you is a thousand miles away from any member of the Wyngate staff.”